This disclosure relates generally to social networking systems, and more specifically to generating a user-specific profile feed presented to users of a social networking system.
Social networking systems allow their users to connect, communicate, and share content with other users of a social networking system. The users may be individuals or entities, such as corporations or charities. Users may create user accounts or profiles on a social networking system that are tied to their identities and that include information about the users, such as interests and demographic information. Social networking systems commonly publish various content items provided by their users for presentation to other users in feeds of content associated with user accounts on the social networking systems. For example, social networking systems commonly provide their users with newsfeeds that present content items provided by additional users to which the users are connected on the social networking systems; the content items may be presented in a particular order, such as a chronological order or an order based on a predicted affinity of the users for the content items. Content items provided to a social networking system by a user may include declarative information, status updates, check-ins to locations, images, photographs, videos, text data, or any other information the user wishes to share with additional users connected to the user on the social networking system.
Users who are connected to additional users on social networking systems may have different types of relationships with the additional users that mirror their real-life relationships. For example, a user who is connected to an additional user on a social networking system may be a family member, a friend, a co-worker, or an acquaintance of the additional user. Relationships between users who are connected to each other on a social networking system may also vary in degrees of closeness between the users. For example, friends who are connected to each other on a social networking system may share a relationship having a high degree of closeness (e.g., close friends having a strong personal relationship) or a low degree of closeness (e.g., acquaintances having a distant relationship). Hence, social networking system users may establish connections on a social networking system reflecting different types of relationships or degrees of closeness with additional social networking system users.
Users of a social networking system are more likely to be interested in viewing content presented by the social networking system if the content is associated with additional users who share a particular type of relationship or degree of closeness with the users. For example, users are generally more interested in viewing content items shared on a social networking system by family members and close personal friends than by acquaintances. However, social networking systems conventionally present users with feeds of content including content items received from various additional users connected to the users on the social networking system, regardless of a type of relationship or degree of closeness between the users and additional users. For example, a social networking system presents a user with a newsfeed including more content items received from an acquaintance of the user than from a close friend of the user if the acquaintance shares more content on the social networking system than the friend. If users are presented with content regardless of a type of relationship or degree of closeness between the user and additional users sharing the content, the users may be less interested in the content and become dissatisfied with a social networking system, leading to a decline in user engagement with the social networking system.